Today, we continue with our new Throwback Thursday series! Join us as we dig into our archive of flyers to give you the lowdown on the get down from back in the day. In case you missed it, last week we covered a show with The Roots from 1994.

This week, Giant Step President and CEO Maurice Bernstein shares the background on a 1990 show with Gangstarr and Masta Ace in 1990.

That was Giant Step’s Christmas party. We started the Giant Step weekly club in September of 1990 on Mondays at SOBs with the resident DJ as DJ Smash. Occasionally Jazzy Nice played as well. And to be totally honest, it was not an instant hit at all. We kind of struggled through the fall and the early winter; A lot of times, we’d have more musicians on stage than we’d have people in the actual crowd.

We managed to get the opportunity through Gangstarr’s managers, Patrick Moxey and Neale Easterby. Patrick now runs Ultra Records and Neale is a successful manager in England. I knew those guys and we were very much into Gangstarr because of their music and their song “Jazz Thing” from Mo’ Better Blues. And they said, “Would you want to do a holiday show with Gangstarr, with Masta Ace opening?” Masta Ace was an artist they also managed.

As many of our readers know, Giant Step has a pretty epic history when it comes to breaking acts and producing landmark events in the New York music scene. Today, we’re proud to announce the launch of our Throwback Thursday series! Join us as we dig into our archive of flyers to give you the lowdown on the get down from back in the day.

Giant Step President and Co-Founder Maurice Bernstein shares the background on this early show with The Roots circa 1994.

This was part of a series we did for Dewar’s called Straight No Chaser – that was our first branded foray, series wise. At the time we were doing our club at the Supperclub, which was a great venue. And Dewar’s wanted to tap into the stuff that Giant Step was doing at the time.

We’d already worked with The Roots a few times at this point – this was not our first show with The Roots; we did their New York debut and ultimately, their first 10 to 15 shows in New York. And this was one of the biggest. We had the Groove Collective opening up – Groove Collective were the band that grew out of the Giant Step club, and at the time we were also managing the band. It was a great night, an iconic show. Beautiful venue. Definitely a night to remember.

“Drop” by The Pharcyde is arguably one of the greatest hip-hop videos ever made, not to mention all the Dilla-beat love. So when Skillz makes this confession about sleeping on Dilla and his tracks for “Runnin,” “Drop,” and “Something That Means Something” in his own ‘Confessional’ video series, we are truly getting a piece of hip-hop history.